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Model Earth:
An Invitation
to
participate in creating of an interactive model of an ideal,
ecologically and socially sustainable Earth, a model that would be
being designed by every and anyone, a model that would portray an
Earth possessing optimal living conditions for all those who share
it for the purpose of there being a universal reference that would
be helpful in any projects concerning the future of any social
entity--from a locally based community, to the whole Earth.
Why Model Earth?
It is easy to define one's own, individual goals. But how to define
the goals for a group of people, or for all the people of the
entire world?
One possible way could be to define those collective goals by
constructing models of the goals with the participation of all the
people who share those goals together.
There is a need for a better future of the entire humanity--such a
future can only be as perfect as possible, only if all of those who
are to share this future collaborate on designing it.
It is obvious from reality that the hierarchical forms of
government that are in existence now no longer can cope with the
increasing magnitude of problems that humanity is forced to face.
Since any attempts, so far, (in the form of reforms, revolutions,
etc.) to improve humankind's lot failed to achieve any significant
results, perhaps a new approach should be considered.
The main reason that our current way of dealing with our problems
doesn't work is that we forever are trying to fix problems that
originate in our past mistakes (mostly, since most problems that
humankind experiences are human made; much smaller proportion of
problems that we have to deals with are truly "natural"), without
knowing exactly what the ideal state of things in the world should
be. The world is being shaped constantly to no one's satisfaction
with our fixes; our fixes are not perfect since there is no
consensus what "perfect" should be like.
In order that solutions to humankind's problems are satisfactory,
we should collectively decide what the ideal state of the world
should be, so that there is a definite direction (towards the
ideal, and not just away from problems to parts unknown--hoping
that we arrive at a better place, not knowing what this "better
place" should look like) for our actions--only then our "fixes" to
any of our problems would be effective!
It is easy to define one's own, individual goals. But how to define
the goals for a group of people, or for all the people of the
entire world? One possible way could be to define those collective
goals by constructing models of the goals with the participation of
all the people who are to share those goals together. There is a
need for a better future of the entire humanity--such a future can
be good only if all of those who have a stake in this future
collaborate on designing it.
There are already many people with good ideas about what a better
future should be like for a better future actually to start
happening, one could think. However, most of these ideas (on the
whole) are not synchronized, and in many instances these ideas are
quite vague, untested properly against all the other ideas that
there might exist about our collective future, and most of these
ideas address only very superficial concerns. Thus, even though it
would seem that a great deal is being done for a better future, on
the whole the situation in the world continues becoming worse.
Many of those ideas are often contrary to each other, and conflicts
might emerge when those ideas are in the state of
realization--something that the modeling would try prevent by
resolving any possible discrepancies among all such ideas within a
model, before any conflicts could develop in reality, with
far greater efficiency than, probably, any discourse, or any
diplomatic processes of today could ever hope to accomplish.
It could also be said that a kind of a model of a better Earth
future already exists in the minds of all those who think about
what their future and the future of the world should be like, but
for any expedient and practical purposes this model that might
exist in the general world consciousness is too vague and is not
explicit enough for any clear reference, something that Model Earth
would surpass by being there actually accessible for any purposes
of reference, discourse, and discussion.
Model Earth would be co-created by virtually anyone, from anywhere
on Earth, who would like to match one's own ideas of what their
ideal future should look like with the ideas of everyone else; at
present a very few people try to co-ordinate their ideas about
their future with the ideas of all others.
This process would not be based on any arbitrary notions, however,
but based on all the knowledge that there would be available of any
pertinent issues involved in the modeling. From their involvement
in the modeling process it would be obvious to the participants
what ideas that they might have about their future would be viable,
and what ideas would not be so--this interactive model would be the
best educational tool available, assessing participants' ideas in
terms of justifiability with the current state of knowledge about
the Earth, the human society,and with the ideas/wishes of all other
participants.
The advantage of using this modeling tool over the current way of
deciding the Earth future would lay in its being impartial and
non-partisan--neither suppressing, nor favoring anyone's ideas over
those of others. This model that would be being created on ongoing
basis (because knowledge and ideas evolve constantly) would be
authoritative not because of possessing any executive authority,
but because of its portraying most realistically what the optimal
state of Earth could be, according to current state of knowledge
and being based on the realistic wishes of virtually all who would
chose to use this modeling tool.
This modeling tool could be used in arbitrating of most, if not
all, conflicts--it would be impartial.
Think of this model as a universal "ombudsman" that would be
authoritative because presenting an Earth with optimal conditions
for all life--a model that could always be disputed and improved
upon.
This interactive model could co-ordinate the efforts and enhance
the scope of perspective and efficiency of the many existing groups
that aim to improve living on Earth (NGOs and others), and would
allow sharing of all of their available knowledge databases.
This model would be possible to be created on existing computers
linked by the Internet. The technology that would allow linking of
a virtually unlimited number of computers together to form a
supercomputer already exists (one of the terms used is "distributed
computing"), and would not demand any outlay of much more than
volunteer energy.
Thank you, Mr. Jan Hearthstone.
Hearthstone Curriculum
Vitae.
Hearthstone Statement
of Purpose.
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